Alclad or Mr colour matt over klear and enamel ?

[robvulcan]

Hi all

 

After a long time using Acylics I’ve recently been using Enamels again airbrushed over Halfords primer.

 

The models are sealed with Klear. 

 

I want to airbrush a good tough matt varnish or satin over them and whilst I initially thought enamel I remember it yellows. 

 

I wondered if Mr Colour or Alclad Varnish lacures misted on would react or not. 

Of course I can test it out for myself but I thought I’d ask in case a better alternative is out there.

 

Usually my stuff if finished with rattle cans from tamiya and Humbrol but I know enamels crumple up with them and react. So now I’m looking for a new method.

 

cheers Rob

[azureglo]

There are many mr Color flat coats and many ways of thinning them, which  had you got in mind?

 

Mr Color flat 182

Mr Color GX 114

Mr Color  GX 113 Super Clear III UV Cut Flat

( and few more for the Japanese market only but can be had via Fleabay)

 

You can thin with:

 

Bog standard cellulose thinner/gunwash etc

Mr Thinner 400

Mr leveling thinner

Tamiya equivalents of above

Something you brewed up yourself

 

I use Mr Color GX 113 Super Clear III UV Cut Flat + leveling thinner exclusively for my many, many builds, thru an H&S Evo 0.4mm. It goes over anything but there will be solvent reaction* if you've used an enamel thinner on your color coat and it hasn't fully evaporated, even mr Leveling is a hot solvent along with its many additives. My painting system uses mr Leveling for primer, color,  gloss decal and final coats so I don't worry about solvents gassing out or reacting- I usually spray my base colours ( Sky, RLM 65 etc) straight onto the wet Surfacer primer immediately if there are no problems or dust/hairs ( my version of 2 wet), not for everyone but my Airbrush-fu is strong.. You use Klear, Mr leveling can melt that but if you're Airbrush-fu is strong and your control great, then problems shall not trouble you, grasshopper.

 

BTW this is not for everyone, it works 100% of the time, is totally  controllable from a sheen to a dead flat, masking ready dry in 30 minutes, cures to maximum hardness in 5 days: Sadly you won't have angst ridden mishaps and lots of thread bloat as folk offer you commiserations and voodoo fixes, so end up with boring short threads full of completed models instead 😉

 

I noted that you have a jones for  Phoenix, I've used their PV72 & 82 varnishes with PQ10 ( too mean to buy the varnish pre thinned) as well as the Xtracolor dedicated varnishes and Xtracolor XDTT thinners with a tiny amount (1 drop:10ml) of Rustins driers for both, worked perfectly over Xtracolor enamels/Klear/Aqua Gloss with no problems and a 1-2 hour drying time. Don't do anything by humbrol except maskol so can't comment on that but in theory should be fine.

 

If you have a decent larger nozzle and a stable air pressure, my backup is Galeria Matt Varnish thinned 20:5:1 with 99.9% IPA & glycerine which is mostly benign subject to solvent reaction* if  you use the IPA and totally harmless if you substitute distilled water for the IPA. The IPA just gives you back some of the drying time you lose using the glycerin as a self leveling retarder and more importantly gives a much easier spray but will probably melt your Klear so same rules as using cellulose/leveling thinner?. If you go down the Galeria route your airbrush -Fu must be strong as its easy to get some nasty Kellogs Frosties action going, if you can spray Future/klear without even thinking about it then Galeria is a doddle

 

My suggestions are based on what I've achieved with builds and WIPS that you can see at your leisure so I'm not just requoting the some interweb hearsay I read somewhere or strongly held opinion based on zero evidence or experience.

 

FWIW, nearly every one of these suggestions for great finishes I tried in the past was from some yahoo who never posted anything they'd ever built,  ones whose models when I looked at them closely, seemed to have been painted with a 24 inch  ceiling roller using textured sand paint or some near OCD master modeller with 2 acres of spray shop, no life  and a kings ransom in equipment..accept advice at your own peril. In the end I asked the man who runs my two paint shops for vintage car restorations and got some useful advice from a guy who started his career spraying bespoke Rolls & Bentley bodies at the likes of Mulliner Park Ward in the 60's and I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know what the internet is and only grudgingly accepts electricity...and his first rule is never test new stuff on a live job but you already know that. Mind you, he also said that "grown men like (me) building little toy Airfix kits is pathetic."...

 

Enjoy and remember, what could possibly go wrong?

 

Anil

 

 

 

[robvulcan]

Well that is an education. Thanks very much for the advise and tips there.

 

I was considering Mr Color Flat 182 thinned with Leveling thinner. It drys so fast in light coats I assumed it may work over klear. 

Not sure about enamels but I am sure I’ve heard of people thinning enamels with them inciuld

be wrong. 

 

I have used enamels for years but back when I was using them I only ever used enamel varnish. But I’d like to avoid the yellowing effect and figured there may be some

other options.

 

Ive got the Winsor and Newton UV artist stuff but not tried the galleria but I didn’t think putting a softer paint over a tougher paint would give a tough finish.

 

cheers Rob  

[azureglo]

On 7/6/2019 at 5:04 PM, robvulcan said:

Well that is an education. Thanks very much for the advise and tips there.

 

I was considering Mr Color Flat 182 thinned with Leveling thinner. It drys so fast in light coats I assumed it may work over klear. 

Not sure about enamels but I am sure I’ve heard of people thinning enamels with them inciuld

be wrong. 

 

I have used enamels for years but back when I was using them I only ever used enamel varnish. But I’d like to avoid the yellowing effect and figured there may be some

other options.

 

Ive got the Winsor and Newton UV artist stuff but not tried the galleria but I didn’t think putting a softer paint over a tougher paint would give a tough finish.

 

cheers Rob  

My pleasure, the W&N takes about a week to cure ( chemically harden that is, it's touch dry in 3-4 hours), once it reaches maximum hardness its the same as my Gunze top coats in resilience. The UV stuff if memory serves is the premium line so in theory should work even better. BTW folks here chuck around the terms "dry"  and "cured"  interchangeably, they're wildly different and there's plenty of factual stuff on the net from various manufacturers like GSI, Lechler and DuPont to name a few that will explain it easily and without needing a masters in chemistry...

 

Anil

[robvulcan]

1 hour ago, azureglo said:

My pleasure, the W&N takes about a week to cure ( chemically harden that is, it's touch dry in 3-4 hours), once it reaches maximum hardness its the same as my Gunze top coats in resilience. The UV stuff if memory serves is the premium line so in theory should work even better. BTW folks here chuck around the terms "dry"  and "cured"  interchangeably, they're wildly different and there's plenty of factual stuff on the net from various manufacturers like GSI, Lechler and DuPont to name a few that will explain it easily and without needing a masters in chemistry...

 

Anil

Many thanks for that. I have been impressed with the W&N stuff in the past. I may well give it another go. 

 

I did just order some MR Hobby 182 I will experiment first on a test sample to see if it can be lightly misted over enamel or Klear. 

 

But If W&N is tough over enamel when cured then that will do me

[azureglo]

1 hour ago, robvulcan said:

Many thanks for that. I have been impressed with the W&N stuff in the past. I may well give it another go. 

 

I did just order some MR Hobby 182 I will experiment first on a test sample to see if it can be lightly misted over enamel or Klear. 

 

But If W&N is tough over enamel when cured then that will do me

But you will do a test first won't you?😉

[robvulcan]

8 hours ago, azureglo said:

But you will do a test first won't you?😉

 Of course. 

There is no way I’m going to trial it on a Model. No chance. 

Even if successful I’ll probably use w&n now. 

.. but we will see  

[dnl42]

Primer.  I always prime with thinned Mr Surfacer.

Color.  I primarily airbrush with Mr Color and Alclad. I never clear-coat before decals because these paints result in a very smooth, decal-ready finish.  I also sometimes use Colourcoat and Humbrol enamels.

 

I use hardware store lacquer (cellulose) thinner for cleaning the airbrush after any of the above.

 

Clear. I like Microscale Micro Flat and Micro Satin for matt and satin finishes respectively. They thin with water and I can clean the airbrush with denatured alcohol. I use Mr Color C46 Clear Gloss for gloss coats.

[azureglo]

12 hours ago, robvulcan said:

 Of course. 

There is no way I’m going to trial it on a Model. No chance. 

Even if successful I’ll probably use w&n now. 

.. but we will see  

Cool, used Galeria matt on the prop on my li'l pony here as the rest of the airframe was getting Aqua gloss and I couldn't be bothered to completely strip, clean and dry the H&S Evo for the Mr Color matt  so I used  the Galeria matt/IPA 75/25. Interestingly this time I "low baked" it:

 

Set a fan oven to the lowest it can go, mine can do a stable 35 centigrade, pop the model in and make sure that any support rods etc are not metal (its obvious if you think about it), bake for 2 hours and check its piping hot before serving..with some creamed potatoes and broccoli...

 

Seriously tho',  after two hours even the Galeria was fingernail scratch proof. This low tech low bake is something a lot of the pro US model car builders do, they often use food dehydrators and of course I had to swing for the  £25,000 takes two 1:1 cars version for the restoration shop but if you're in a hurry or worried that a longer ambient dry n cure might expose it to damage , the fan oven works brilliantly, is already in your house and you don't need to buy more crap to store (e.g the dehydrator) as I found on my pony. 

 

Look forward to seeing the finished Spits and hey,my baby Vulcan completes next week as well!

 

Cheers

 

Anil

 

 

[malpaso]

I can't spray Klear (may have to try again) so I always brush that but no problems with any Galleria varnish to date, Matt, Gloss or Satin spray easily with water thinning.  I agree with Azureglo that the Matt at least takes along time before its really hard.

 

My only problem with Matt Galeria was knocking the open bottle over, so lost about a 1/3 - sufficient for several hundred 1/72 aircraft (not exaggerating tooo much) remains though, a little goes along way.

 

Lighting i find is the critical item in spraying varnishes, its easy to end up with too much in one spot or vice versa...

 

Cheers

Will

[azureglo]

2 hours ago, malpaso said:

I can't spray Klear (may have to try again) so I always brush that but no problems with any Galleria varnish to date, Matt, Gloss or Satin spray easily with water thinning.  I agree with Azureglo that the Matt at least takes along time before its really hard.

 

My only problem with Matt Galeria was knocking the open bottle over, so lost about a 1/3 - sufficient for several hundred 1/72 aircraft (not exaggerating tooo much) remains though, a little goes along way.

 

Lighting i find is the critical item in spraying varnishes, its easy to end up with too much in one spot or vice versa...

 

Cheers

Will

there was a time when you called me "Anil"...😥

 

Re lighting I have a positionable  250 W equivalent daylight bulb over the spraying area...

 

 

Anil